Members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions heard bad news and good news on efforts to reduce health care–associated infections.

At the September 24 hearing, Committee Chairman Sen Tom Harkin (D, Iowa) noted that every year, about 1.7 million individuals in the United States acquire a health care–associated infection and that these infections are related to 270 deaths every day. Infections acquired in all settings cost the economy up to an estimated $45 billion annually.